Dennis Allen after the Raiders’ loss to Washington: “That hurt–that one stung”

-Intro: Injuries in the game–McFadden had a hamstring and Marcel Reece injured his knee a little bit… the extent we don’t know right
now. We’ll find that out later.

That game… I told the players in the locker room, that hurt. That one stung.

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I thought the way we were able to start out the game, block a punt, get to 14-0 and we have the momentum and then we let them back in the game. Got to give them credit, they continued to fight and compete, but we didn’t do enough to win the football game.

Our defense and special teams… I thought they held their own. I thought they did some good things. Mentioned the blocked punt for a touchdown, the fake punt got us another first down. I thought our special teams went out and executed.

I thought our defense applied pressure to their offense through the whole game.

After we completed the long pass down there and be able to get a touchdown there on offense, we just couldn’t get anything else going.

Obviously losing McFadden and Marcel, that hurt. But we’ve got to find a way to get some more offense going.

-Q: When and how was the decision made not to play Pryor? Was it last night?

-ALLEN: It was last night. We actually were at point where we were ready to go with Terrelle. We visited with him one more time with his doctors and we just didn’t feel good about letting him play.

And it just wasn’t the right thing to do and we wanted to make sure we get it right by him and obviously with all the emphasis that’s put on head injuries, brain injuries, we wanted to exercise extreme caution in that situation. And that’s what we did.
And so I think we did the right thing by Terrelle Pryor by not playing him in this game.
-Q: Do you think he’ll play next week?

-ALLEN: I’m very hopeful. We were at the point where we were just about ready to say that he’s got it, but we just didn’t feel comfortable going ahead and letting him play.

-Q: You decided he would not be active at all?
-ALLEN: Yeah, listen, he was either he was going to be a starter or inactive. Either you can play or you can’t play. That was never really even an issue or a question–it was whether or not this kid could play and we just didn’t feel right playing him.
-Q: Did Pryor regress last night?
-ALLEN: I just didn’t want to have any doubt in my mind at all, OK? That this kid was 100%. And after visiting with the doctors, there was doubt in my mind, and I wasn’t going to put him in harm’s way.

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-Q: How did you feel Matt Flynn played?
-ALLEN: Well, obviously I don’t think he saw the field very good today.
I think he was obviously part of some of the sacks that we gave up in the game. It was a tough situation for him to go into, obviously with the loss of McFadden and Reece, that didn’t help him out any…

Offensively we didn’t get it done and that’s really the bottom line.

-Q: Was there any thought about going to McGloin?

-ALLEN: You know, not really. I just didn’t feel like that… was the better option. Matt Flynn was our best option to give us a chance and we didn’t play well.

-Q: What about Flynn’s pocket presence?

-ALLEN: Yeah, really, it’s being able to see the field. What I talk about is seeing the coverage and being able to deliver the ball. So some of those sacks are partly on him and partly on protection–everybody’s involved in that. But that’s what I’m talking about there.

-Q: How big a play was Flynn’s pick-six?

-ALLEN: There’s no question, that’s what I’m saying earlier. We had the momentum in the game and they were kind of able to snatch it from us a little bit. So yeah, that was a huge play in the game.

-Q: How much does the offense change when you go from Pryor to Flynn?

-ALLEN: They’re two totally different types of quarterbacks. Obviously the Zone Read runs we’re able to run with Pryor opens up some seams inside for the running backs and they’ve got to account for both the runner and the quarterback. I think Pryor’s ability to move around and create some things with his feet…

Even though the plays are not always too much different, the dynamic of how the offense, I think, is different.

-Q: Could McGloin maybe get more of a look over Flynn in the future?

-ALLEN: I don’t know. I mean, we’ll see. This is 15 minutes after the game. Listen, Matt didn’t play well and we have to move on. We have to get better from that, so hopefully we’ll be ready to go for San Diego.

-Q: You talked about Flynn’s arm strength in camp and he needed some rest. Did you think his arm strength was OK today?

-ALLEN: I don’t think that was an issue at all in the game today.

-Q: Why did you kick the field goal at the end on fourth and 1?

-ALLEN: It was fourth-and-inches, OK? It was fourth-and-inches, and we’ve got to be able to make inches. We hadn’t been moving the ball up and down the field, and to get a chance to be down there and we’re in scoring position, possibly get a touchdown… We’ve got to make inches.

-Q: You had to call a timeout on defense when they went hurry up. Were there things they did offensively that surprised you?

-ALLEN: No, they didn’t do anything at all that surprised us. They were a different personnel grouping that what we anticipated. I wanted to make sure we had the right defensive personnel on the field so we could put ourselves in the best defensive call. So they stayed in 12 personnel, I wanted to get nickel out there and then I called for a sub situation.

That is one of the things that happens when teams go hurry up, they try not to line us up.

-Q: The touchdown to Garcon, does D.J. Hayden need to get in there and bang him?

-ALLEN: Yeah, he needs to get tighter, yeah–needs to get tighter. That’s another one of those learning experiences for him.

-Q: How did you think Jennings ran?

-ALLEN: I think he ran the ball hard. I thought he did an admirable job of filling in for McFadden… Have to look at the tape to see exactly how he did; thought he hit the hole hard.

-Q: You had the blocked punt and some other pressures. Did you see some things this week that led you to think you could get some punts?

-ALLEN: Yeah, we felt like we could get some pressure on him and potentially block a punt, and if we weren’t able to get there and block it we felt like we could force a bad punt. We felt with the get-off time we had a chance to get there.

-Q: How does losing McFadden change your offense?

-ALLEN: Obviously from a run-game standpoint he’s the guy who can hit the home-run ball. And so I think our other runners are a little bit more physical type runners, whereas Darren’s got a little more burst…

If we have to be without Darren for any length of time, I feel confident that both Jeremy Stewart and Rashad Jennings can handle the load.

-Q: You use him in the Wildcat, so does that squeeze your playbook when he’s out?

-ALLEN: No, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think that’s going to be… we only ran two plays out of the Wildcat.

-Q: McFadden went back in after he seemed to hurt it, did it get worse?

-ALLEN: I don’t know exactly what it was… I know they said it was a hamstring…

-Q: You had some big off-sides penalties today.

-ALLEN: Huge plays. Huge plays. One off-sides was a take-away… We’re going to have the ball in scoring position. We can’t do that. It’s unacceptable. We’ve got to get it fixed.

Too many pre-snap penalties. We’ve got to get that fixed.

-Q: How do you stay on course after falling to 1-3 with some of your top guys hurt?

-ALLEN: Listen, we’ve faced adversity. And we’re going to continue to ball, we’re going to continue to fight. Because that’s what we do, that’s what you do in the NFL and that’s what a pro football team’s supposed to do.

We’ve got to be able to overcome adversity, we’ve got to be able to deal with injuries, and we need guys that get an opportunity to come in and step up.

-Q: Do you think any of the onus goes on the play-calling?

-ALLEN: Listen, I think now we’re trying to nit-pick and trying to find some things. Listen, we didn’t play well and we didn’t move the ball well enough.

No, I have no challenge with the play calling.

-Q: Another miss for Janikowski–even though it was from 52 and off the dirt. Is he saying that there’s anything going wrong systematically here?

-ALLEN: Listen, we’ve got to get more comfortable still with that duo. It’s a 52-yarder off the dirt, but yeah, any time he misses it’s a concern. We have to continue to look at that and see what we can do to fix that.